Sunlight fuels life on Earth by powering photosynthesis, a process that converts solar radiation and carbon into sugars. Our sun's color, temperature, and distance from Earth have coaxed photosynthetic plants to absorb most wavelengths of light except for infrared and green, which these plants instead strongly reflect.

But most stars in the nearby universe aren't like the sun.

About 80 percent of the Milky Way's stars are dim red dwarfs. As a result, astrobiologists have suggested that photosynthetic plants on worlds orbiting lone red dwarfs could take on hues of red, blue, yellow, purple, or even grayish-black to best absorb the starlight. (See "Distant Planets Could Have Plants of 'Alien' Colors.")

A third